Heineken Sales Down As Dickheads Migrate To Craft Beers

Shiraz 4.99

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

rubbish

anyone who drinks Heineken would know the difference immediately

You would think wouldn't you, I can confirm it's true & never once got pulled up on it.

We also used do the blindfold tasting with shot glasses of Guinness, Bud, Carlsberg & Smitwicks. Do it sometime for the craic, it's a great eye opener & shows you how much of the taste is based on your visual experience.

Shenshen

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

You would think wouldn't you, I can confirm it's true & never once got pulled up on it.

We also used do the blindfold tasting with shot glasses of Guinness, Bud, Carlsberg & Smitwicks. Do it sometime for the craic, it's a great eye opener & shows you how much of the taste is based on your visual experience.

While I'm not sure I'd taste much of a difference between Budweiser and Carlsberg, surely people would know them from Guinness and Smithwicks?

Shakespeare's Sister

There is a distinct difference in taste between Bud and Carlsberg. Bud is more watery.

I used to dislike beer and thought "They all taste the same" - then I got to like beer and now I know how wrong I was.
I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between stouts though.

Zubeneschamali

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

we also used do the blindfold tasting with shot glasses of Guinness, Bud, Carlsberg & Smitwicks. Do it sometime for the craic, it's a great eye opener & shows you how much of the taste is based on your visual experience

Sober, I'd bet I could smell the difference, never mind taste it. The blindfold taste tests I've seen where people couldn't tell were done on people who had already had more than a few.

endacl

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

There is a distinct difference in taste between Bud and Carlsberg. Bud is water.

Better

positron

JohnnyChimpo wrote: »

So Heineken sounds like an Irish name to you

Okay, fair point.

whisky_galore

Whoever writes WW should be snapped up straight away by RTE. They both have a unique brand of 'comedy'.

Links234

Nova Long Sample wrote: »

What's wrong with drinking "craft" beers if they are chemical free? I couldn't care less what brand it is once it's;

1. Tastey
2. Chemicle free

All beer contains dihydrogen monoxide!

Reoil

...what the **** are craft beers?

AnonoBoy

Reoil wrote: »

...what the **** are craft beers?

F***ing beers that are made in a traditional or non-mechanized way by a small brewery.

Frank Lee Midere

Bud definitely is the blandest of Lagers. It barely tastes.

Shakespeare's Sister

AnonoBoy wrote: »

F***ing beers that are made in a traditional or non-mechanized way by a small brewery.

What are f'ucking beers?

AnonoBoy

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

What are f'ucking beers?

Beers from F*cking in Austria?

First Up

drkpower wrote: »

Fair point, although that is changing (slowly).

But a good many off licences now have a very good selection so there is no excuse for not trying them that way. If you love one stout, its madness not to want to see what else is out there of the same type.

True, but that's bottled stout and I really only want my Guinness/stout on draft. If it has to be bottled, then I'll go for an ale or a proper lager most likely.

Baron Kurtz

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

Craft beer is grand, it's the bars that change their taps constantly to accommodate different ones every week that piss me off, that plus the general sh1te atmosphere which pervades these places. I spent a Saturday night in Mulligans in Stoneybatter recently, this is supposedly a brilliant little "hidden gem" in Dublin, absolutely poison atmosphere and staff who seemed to be more concerned about sh1te ironic moustache maintenance than the customers.

I enjoy the beers, it's the bullsh1t that goes with it that pisses me off. Give me a boozer with a good atmosphere and genuine people with Guinness, Heineken Bud etc on tap over a Mulligans, PMacs or Blackbird type noncefest any day of the week.

Yeah, I kind of agree with a lot of this. Against the Grain, Brew Dock and the rest of that chain of bars feel the need to incessantly lord the brilliance of their superior wares with corny slogans and signs saying things like, "Life's too short to drink crap beer"!

Unrivalled snobbery imo and if anything it's that kind of egregious chutzpah that would deter a person from going near those places.

I do venture in on occasion and used to frequent these joints regularly in their infancy when everyone wasn't so aloof - when decent ales were...decent ales - but it's few and far between these days. I find they're employing the biggest bellends as well probably to keep in fitting with all the crafty bluster I suppose. Alfie Byrne's is a more recent example of this.

AnonoBoy

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

Craft beer is grand, it's the bars that change their taps constantly to accommodate different ones every week that piss me off, that plus the general sh1te atmosphere which pervades these places. I spent a Saturday night in Mulligans in Stoneybatter recently, this is supposedly a brilliant little "hidden gem" in Dublin, absolutely poison atmosphere and staff who seemed to be more concerned about sh1te ironic moustache maintenance than the customers.

I've never found the staff in Mulligan's to be anything except friendly. Chat away with them whenever I'm in having a pint by myself. Always get served quickly. Nice atmosphere for a quiet weekend pint I think.

First Up

Baron Kurtz wrote: »

Yeah, I kind of agree with a lot of this. Against the Grain, Brew Dock and the rest of that chain of bars feel the need to incessantly lord the brilliance of their superior wares with corny slogans and signs saying things like, "Life's too short to drink crap beer"!

Unrivalled snobbery imo and if anything it's that kind of egregious chutzpah that would deter a person from going near those places.

I do venture in on occasion and used to frequent these joints regularly in their infancy when everyone wasn't so aloof - when decent ales were...decent ales - but it's few and far between these days. I find they're employing the biggest bellends as well probably to keep in fitting with all the crafty bluster I suppose. Alfie Byrne's is a more recent example of this.

Haven't seen that one. In fact I don't recall ever seeing an advert for a "craft" or speciality beer that said anything other than the name and maybe some info about the flavours. And I never met a barman who offered any information (bluster or otherwise) about a beer unless asked.

I didn't know until this thread that Irish drinkers of mass produced beer were such a sensitive lot. So easily threatened by something different.

Poor lambs.

Beefy78

endacl wrote: »

Better

Lads, this is so boring. Budweiser is the biggest selling beer on the planet. Some people actually like it.

major deegan

Do they still make large bottles of Harp?

Call Me Jimmy

I can't taste the difference so unless there was steam comin off it I'd be none the wiser

First Up

Beefy78 wrote: »

Lads, this is so boring. Budweiser is the biggest selling beer on the planet. Some people actually like it.

Not so. Several Chinese beers sell more.

As for Bud, a beer made from rice is just not my thing but you are welcome to it, even if it is now technically a Belgian beer....

Shenshen

Beefy78 wrote: »

Lads, this is so boring. Budweiser is the biggest selling beer on the planet. Some people actually like it.

MY grandfather used to say "Millions of cats love eating raw mice, I wouldn't even want a cooked one"

Egginacup

Grandeeod wrote: »

IMO the Craft Beer thing is about trying something new and I've no problem with that. Exploring different things makes life interesting.

My old local in Ireland completely reinvented itself by introducing a large selection of craft beers and some really nice meals to comliment them. For example, Pan Seared Wicklow Pheasant, Braised Red Cabbage, Roast Red Wine Jus, Creamed Mash
Perfect with... Ginger Porter by the Rascal Brewing Co.
or
Fillet Steak, Roasted Thyme Baby Potato, Sautéed Onion & Mushroom, Peppercorn Sauce
Goes well with... O'Hara's Irish Dry Stout, Bagnelstown.

If you want your mass produced lagers and a Sunday Carvery, you can still have it. But it was nice to see a boozer offer something different aswell.

Wanker-alert right there. So the pheasant was born and raised in Wicklow? Went to school there did he?

Pheasants are wild. They fly all over the country.

Pan-seared? How else are you going to sear a piece of meat? In a bucket?

Shenshen

Egginacup wrote: »

Pan-seared? How else are you going to sear a piece of meat? In a bucket?

Blowtorch?

Molester Stallone II

Egginacup wrote: »

And what the fuck is "hand-crafted" ale?

Some clown cut the wheat/malt/barley by himself and then pulverised it between his shovel hands? Then went to the spring and brought back handfuls of water and mixed it in a bowl with yeast (that he hand gathered)?

The fucking label on that bottle probably wasn't even applied "by hand"

It's literally made in a shed, home brewing taken a step further

Baron Kurtz

First Up wrote: »

Haven't seen that one. In fact I don't recall ever seeing an advert for a "craft" or speciality beer that said anything other than the name and maybe some info about the flavours. And I never met a barman who offered any information (bluster or otherwise) about a beer unless asked.

I didn't know until this thread that Irish drinkers of mass produced beer were such a sensitive lot. So easily threatened by something different.

Poor lambs.

Yeah, they're written up on chalkboards and on gazette style sandwich boards (permanently infused onto the boards at that. Lest someone like me takes it upon themselves to eradicate the inane aphorism!:)

I do welcome different and various beers in Ireland of course, in fact always pined for something different and am glad of its arrival but certain attitudes toward it in my experience come across quite immature and oddly, superior. And I'm not sure why.

Other countries, the UK imo, don't have this hang up. Probably because they've been doing it right for a long time and we're a bit new to it - giving those people who are also equally fresh to these in vogue tipples an outlet to crow about it.

rubadub

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

rubbish

anyone who drinks Heineken would know the difference immediately

I doubt that very much, I have no doubt a large percentage would fail blind tasting, but being served up what they think is heineken is less likely again. There is a mod in the beer forum who a member of some group into their beer tasting and homebrewing. He is always going on about the imporantce of blind tasting and telling people to challenge themselves. A group of them from this organistation met up in a pub and did proper blind tasting of numerous stouts and few could distinguish between them. Not rare oddball stouts, it was guinness, murphys, beamish, o'haras. I would think bud is more distinctive than heineken.

And putting them to a blind taste puts them on more on alert. i.e. if given a mystery pint and asked "is this heineken?" someone who is good at tasting and regularly drinks it might well be able to tell you its not. But if that person asked for a heineken and was given another they might not realise it at all.

I suspect a lot of the whingers are calling anything outside of the bland mainstream beers "craft beer", i.e. mass produced beers which are not as devoid of taste, like paulaner.

First Up

Baron Kurtz wrote: »

Yeah, they're written up on chalkboards and on gazette style sandwich boards (permanently infused onto the boards at that. Lest someone like me takes it upon themselves to eradicate the inane aphorism!:)

I do welcome different and various beers in Ireland of course, in fact always pined for something different and am glad of its arrival but certain attitudes toward it in my experience come across quite immature and oddly, superior. And I'm not sure why.

Other countries, the UK imo, don't have this hang up. Probably because they've been doing it right for a long time and we're a bit new to it - giving those people who are also equally fresh to these in vogue tipples an outlet to crow about it.

So the objection is not to the beers but to some of the people who drink them?
Still smacks of insecurity and inferiority complex to me.

Zubeneschamali

Baron Kurtz wrote: »

Other countries, the UK imo, don't have this hang up.

You must be joking. The snobbery around "real ale", CAMRA vs. mass-produced refrigerated fizzy keg rubbish is monumental.

First Up

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

You must be joking. The snobbery around "real ale", CAMRA vs. mass-produced refrigerated fizzy keg rubbish is monumental.

Agree there is a lot of pretentious guff around the CAMRA scene. That doesn't mean the beer isn't a lot better as a result.
I recall some purists who refused to recognise some excellent Scottish beers because they were not dispensed through gravity feed. Still smashing beers though.